Grand Canyon Uranium Mine Re-approved…!

Would you let a uranium mine in the Grand Canyon watershed reopen based on impact studies done two dozen years ago? The U.S. Forest Service is allowing Denison Mines Corp. to begin excavating the “Canyon Mine” — south of Grand Canyon National Park on the Kaibab National Forest — without updating its 26-year-old “environmental impact statement” looking at the mine’s impacts on surrounding lands, waters and wildlife. The Service claims no new public review or analysis is needed.

But, says the Center for Biological Diversity’s Taylor McKinnon, in fact we’ve learned plenty in the past quarter-century that could, and should, affect the decision to reopen. “We now know uranium mining threatens permanent, irretrievable damage to Grand Canyon’s watershed. This dangerous proposal should never have been approved back in 1986, and rubber-stamping it a generation later is an insult to the public, American Indian tribes and Grand Canyon National Park.”

The Canyon Mine lies within the 1 million-acre watershed where new uranium mining was banned by the Obama administration in January, after much work in and out of court by the Center and a large coalition of allies, including our supporters.